The Low Highway
by ebonyandyew
Summary: All Winstons were running from something. Whether it was their mistakes or their regrets, they all had the same urge in common. To run and not look back.
1. To Share The Road

Sara Grace Winston and Herman Kozik had met on the road before he moved permanently to Charming. She'd seen the kutte and introduced herself against her best judgement. "Where you from that you know the reaper?" He had asked when she told him he had a nice decal on his Dyna.

"Charming, born and raised." She had laughed.

He'd laughed too, one hand on the handlebars of his bike the other at his belt. If she was from Charming she knew the reaper damn well. She thought he was cute, if a bit rough. His hair needed work, but his eyes lit up when he smiled and his laugh was the kind that made you feel good just hearing it.

"How come you so far from home darling?"

"How I make a living don't really work if I stay in a small town." She answered his next question before he even asked it. "I'm a boxer."

He whistled lowly. "Boxer from Charming, you don't happen to know an old son of a bitch named Tig?"

"My old man's part of SAMCRO, course I know Tig." She answered with a tone that assured him she knew Tig Trager and his exploits plenty. His smile seemed to falter a bit.

"So you _know_ the reaper. Damn girl."

"I'm guessing you're from Tacoma?" She said, point to his patches.

"Yeah, sergeant at arms." he paused a bit and added. "Can't believe you let that pretty face get beat up."

Sara Grace shrugged. "Can't do much else, rather get beat up than lick somebody's shoes."

"I get that. Can I get a name darlin'?"

She was a bit worried about that part and pondered whether or not to give him her last name. "Sara Grace, what about you?"

"Kozik. Where you headed Sara Grace?" he asked.

"A roadhouse about sixty miles up the highway. They got a cage set up, I'm hoping to make a fair bit of money."

"Shit darlin' . Thought you said you were a boxer."

Sara grinned at Kozik. "I do a bit of everything."

"You want some company? I'm headed that way." Kozik asked with a bit of hesitation. For all his bluff and bluster he was kinda shy. It was cute.

"Alright. Just don't swerve too much or I'll leave you in the dust."

"Hey, I can handle my own bike."

"Easy cowboy, just teasing."

A smile hadn't left either for their faces the whole time they were talking. She'd heard Kozik's name before, usually followed by Tig snorting in disgust and leaving the room. Piney said once that he was good people, and Sara Grace figured it took a certain kinda person to gain Tig's affection.

Herman Kozik didn't know any of the SAMCRO brothers had a daughter Sara Grace's age. She must've been at least in her early 20's. Blonde, so there wasn't a chance she was Tig's kid, much to his relief. Maybe one of Otto's or Lenny's. She was fucking cute, all short and stacked. Not really what he went for usually, but she had something different and he liked it.

"You wanna take off?" she asked with that ever present smile.

Maybe it was that smile. Whatever it was, he had sixty miles of it before they'd split ways.

"Up 395?"

"Yeah, right off the highway."

"You got it doll."

Sara Grace was starting to like Kozik, even if she was a bit wary of him being a Son. If her dad or brother caught wind of any of this, she wasn't really sure what they would do. On one hand, they'd be glad one of their brothers was looking out for her, but judging by the way Kozik was looking at her and the way she was looking at him, that happiness might not be very long lived. She didn't plan on doing anything about whatever they had just started, but the night was still young. It had been a long time since someone had grabbed her attention like Kozik had. A part of her was screaming to slow her dumb ass down by a few hundred miles an hour, but as she swung her leg over her bike and started the engine that part got drowned out real quick.

They peeled out of the parking lot of the gas station. Her 1993 Sportster wasn't a speed demon, so she let him take point. All the Sons, at least the younger ones, loved their Dynas and Kozik was no exception. She was too small to handle one, so her father got her the 93 883 XL for high school graduation. Piney had looked ridiculous pulling into Teller-Morrow on it, all 6' 3" of him cramped up, his knees practically up to his eyeballs. Sara Grace loved her bike, as tiny as it was, and was ready to bite the head off of anyone who started in on the Sport's suspension problems. It had its flaws but it was her's damnit.

Kozik was right, he could handle his bike just fine, and looked damn fine doing it. She wasn't one to ride bitch but it was starting to have its appeal. He was a big guy, with shoulders wide enough to build a house on, and an easy going smile that could very well pull her into something more than just having his company.

She was due at the roadhouse at 10, it was around 7 and the sun had begun to set. Sara Grace had hoped to get there early, get a feel for the place before deciding whether or not to commit. Kozik had let her pass him a few miles back, giving her the open road. She lived for this, the big sky, the constant motion. It was something her and Ope could agree on, that being on the road was the best feeling in the world.

The difference between her and her brother was that as much Ope loved the open road, he was a homebody through and through. She was too much like their mother to settle down for too long. Or maybe it was their father. Piney might have stayed in Charming but he was always running in his own way. Mostly through bottles of tequila and croweaters. He wasn't the first, and he wouldn't be the last, but he had tried his best to raise her and Ope. It wasn't much of a surprise when she took off, but she knew it hurt Pops just the same. She could never tell if Pie was okay with it or not.

He'd been locked up for three years now. Her mother complained during their last conversation that at least she knew where one of her children was at all times. After several reminders that she was, in fact, a grown adult, they had hung up on each other.

"Hey, you eat yet?" Kozik yelled over the rush of noise from the highway. She shook her head no and pointed to one of the exit signs. Kozik nodded in agreement and turned on his blinker. They pulled into a diner in Redding. The sun had gone down, and the lit windows and indoor heating were a welcome break from the road. It was cold for October in California. They got two seats at the counter, and Sara Grace was glad for the chance to stretch out her back.

She ordered coffee, while Kozik turned down their waitress with an "I'm good darlin'".

"What's with Sons and calling everyone darling?" Sara asked as she stirred two creamers into her coffee. "My dad, my brother, my uncles. Everyone says darling like it's the wild wild west."

"You gotta problem with it darlin?" Kozik said with a shit-eating grin.

She just narrowed her eyes at him and flicked a few drops of coffee off her spoon at him.

"What are you? Twelve?" He teased, putting his hands up to shield his face.

"Maybe." She said, sticking her tongue out at him.

She was always weird before fights. Always jittery and quick tempered. Probably wasn't the best mood for her to try to flirt with somebody in, as she knew from prior experience. It took a certain kind of guy to get along with her, and most of them thought she was just downright strange. She tucked her hair back behind her ears and waited for the awkward silence to fall, staring intently at the scuffed up toes of her boots.

Something hit the side of her head.

Kozik had blown a straw wrapper and nailed her.

She scrunched up her nose at him and laughed. "Who's the twelve year now?"

"I'm all man baby, don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure, Kozik. Keep lyin to yourself, cuz that's the only person you'll fool." She leaned her elbow on the counter and rested one of her cheeks against her fist.

"Ouch darlin, that one hurt." He grinned. She was just getting cuter and cuter.

"You wanna band-aid?" Sara Grace asked snarkily as their waitress came back to take their order.

A big plate of food was never a good idea before a cage fight. A few too many blows to the stomach that resulted in her blowing chunks in the middle of a fight had drilled that lesson in hard. She got a bowl of soup and a glass of water. Kozik ordered a burger and fries.

The radio was playing off in the background, some local yacht rock station that her dad would've loved to hate. Not the kinda shit you wanted to listen to before you're supposed to go kick someone's face.

"How much they payin' you for the match?" Kozik asked curiously. The only bar fights he'd been involved in hadn't had much payout besides a few black eyes.

"Fifty bucks a round, plus four hundred if I win. Eight hundred if I win two, but I don't know if I'm gonna do it. Thought I'd check it out first, see the level of sleaze I'd be dealing with."

"That's smart." He said with a nod. "Is it just a cage fight, or MMA?"

She laughed with a twisted smile. "Don't think it'll get that sophisticated, Kozik. Pretty sure they just want to see a bunch scantily clad women beat on each other so they don't have to make the effort."

"Easy money for you then, if you been beatin' on old Tiggy for years." The way he said Tiggy proved that there was little love lost between the two of them.

"That's the idea." She conceded. If they were just looking for amateurs, it wouldn't be the fairest thing in the world, but she needed the cash.

There was the rumble of three more motorcycles pulling into the parking lot and Kozik's shoulders tensed immediately, hand going to the knife on his hip. They were wearing Harley gear, but no kuttes, and he relaxed with a sigh.

Sara Grace quirked an eyebrow at him for an explanation.

"The Mayans have been getting restless lately, pushing in on more of the Sons' territory."

Sara had got a call from Jax Teller a few months ago saying just as much, with a few more caveats that she was sure had come from his mother.

"Good thing you found me then, eh?"

The Mayans weren't stupid, they would know who she was if they ran into her.

Kozik solemnly put a hand over his heart. "I'm here to protect and serve darlin."

She smacked his arm with a smirk. "I've been doing just fine out here for years, I'll have you know."

"I don't doubt it darlin'."

"But thanks for coming along." Sara added sincerely. "It's been awhile since I traveled with somebody, forgot what it was like to share the road."

It might've just been her imagination, but his cheeks got a little red as he smiled. "Anytime."

They ate and headed out again, Sara up front this time. They were pretty close to the roadhouse and she didn't want to miss it. She hadn't asked Kozik if he was going to stick around or take off and was beginning to wish she had. The miles wore on and they pulled into the gravel drive of the roadhouse by a quarter after 9. Kozik parked his bike right next to her and followed her in. Sara Grace looked at him curiously but didn't say anything.

It was dark, and noisy, and crowded, like every other roadhouse in existence. The cage was set up where there normally would've been a dance floor, just a couple pieces of ten foot tall chain link fence thrown together. The floor was covered in cheap gymnastic mats that looked worse for wear. The whole thing was lit with a combination of Christmas lights and the flood lights used at construction sites.

"Swanky place you got, doll."

She smacked his arm again, and tried to make her way to the bar through the crowd. Kozik muscled her a bar stool, his bulk preventing them from getting crushed by the flood of humanity that came flowing in and out of the front and back doors. He ordered a beer and asked if she wanted one. She shook her head no and zipped up her jacket a bit more. Once she was in the cage nothing would be left to the imagination, but for now she'd had enough leering.

She'd be considered "curvy" by whoever the hell made up those classifications, with muscled thighs and a working-class-pretty face. Blue eyes, broad freckled cheeks and an Irish button nose thanks to Piney. Her and Opie had the same eyes and the same smile, but after that they were night and day.

"You gonna fight?" Kozik asked over the din.

"Yeah, it's not too bad, and I need the cash. You sticking around?" Sara Grace asked him, trying to not sound too hopeful.

Kozik gave her a smirk. "Maybe." He drank more of his beer. "Might just want to see what those little fists of yours can do."

"They'll bust your teeth if you don't watch yourself." Sara told him, half-joking half-serious.

She'd been told her life she was too little, too weak, too much of a woman, not enough of a woman her whole damn life. She was getting pretty sick of it. It was the reason she took up boxing in the first place, but she was coming to the realization that it didn't matter how many punches she landed or how many she could take, the world would see her the same damn way.

"Easy doll, didn't mean to offend. I do really want to see you fight." He said leaning closer so he wouldn't have to yell over the rowdy men and blaring hair metal. She relaxed a little on her barstool and opened her hand for his beer. He gave it to her, a bit surprised by her venom. Sara took a swig and handed it back to him with a sigh.

"Sorry. I get weird before a fight. I didn't mean to bite your head off." She said quietly, spinning one of the rings off her fingers on the bartop.

"Hey, it's all good. I get it." He shrugged easily, taking another draw from his beer.

"It's really the only thing I'm good at, so when people doubt it, I get- snarly." She rushed out as an explanation.

Kozik doubted it was the only thing she was good at, at least she sure as hell wasn't stupid.

"I felt the same way after I got out of the Army. Probably why I found the Sons so easy." He left out the three year cocaine bender and his overdose. He was still ashamed of what he had done, and kept it so close to his chest that only Happy fully knew what went on. Kozik wondered if he could tell her for a moment, but shut that thought down quick. He didn't even know if he'd see her again after tonight.

"Who're you supposed to met?" Kozik asked, happy to change the subject.

"Old geezer with a mustache." She said, glancing around the barroom, trying to find the guy who'd come up to her outside the gym a few days ago with a flyer.

"That's half the dudes in here." Kozik laughed, beckoning to the barkeep for another.

"Said he'd be over by the dart board."

There were a couple of men hanging around over there, and a few women who all looked young and eager.

"I got him, now watch and learn." Sara said with a wry smile, hopping off the bar stool.

Herman took her seat and watched her cross over, unzipping her jacket and pulling her hair out of its tie before starting to chat up an old guy in a red plaid shirt and dirty green cap. She came back after a few minutes, and started taking things out of her pockets and handing them to him. One small knife, a wallet, two lighters and a pack of cigarettes along with her keys.

"I've got a match in fifteen minutes." She told him, taking the four silver rings off of her fingers and slipping them all onto his left pinky. "You lose those-"

"I won't, promise." He said reassuringly.

She reached back into her waistband and pulled out a wicked looking folding knife and gave it to him. It was military issue from before he enlisted.

"Same with that." Sara said with a seriousness that was new to their interactions.

"Who you up against, slugger?" Kozik asked, tucking the knife into his belt.

"Brunette in the exercise gear. Apparently she's some kind of wannabe WWE diva."

He could see exactly who she was talking about. The woman was wearing a lime green sports bra and tiny spandex shorts that made her tan look orange. She was taller than Sara by a few inches, but skinnier. Not that Sara was fat, she was just solid. And had more ass. A significant amount of ass.

She checked her pockets one more time just to make sure. People had a tendency to go through your shit when you left it alone somewhere in a skeezy bar.

"Good luck, doll."

"Thanks, cowboy." She said with a wink, exhaling fully before turning and heading towards the back of the bar where a few benches had been set up. She took her jacket off and stripped out of her shirt, before toeing her boots of and taking off her socks. Once everything was neat and folded she started stretching. Arms first, back, then legs.

Ed, the guy who gave her the flyer, yelled out that it'd be ten minutes until the first fight, and the crowd started to get antsy, lining up in front of the cage, grabbing beers before the action started, and jostling for the best view.

She took a roll of medical tape from the bench and began to wrap her knuckles and wrists. It'd make grappling harder, but she could deal with that. A broken finger and she wouldn't be able to ride home.

3 minute rounds, fifty bucks a round, she needed to last thirty minutes to pay the rent, plus the four hundred if she won. That money would go towards things like food, and her medical bills from the last set of broken ribs. The shifts she picked up bartending in Westwood would hopefully let her have a little security after this shit was done.

Her opponent was over on the other side of the cage at her own bench, chatting up one of the spectators in an Ed Hardy tee shirt and fake tan.

"Hey, sugar tits! You gonna get in a little catfight? You gonna pull her hair?" Someone yelled out of the crowd. Sara ignored him, and focused on getting the tape right on her left wrist. It was a bit tight, so she unwound it and did it again.

Kozik watched her from the bar, intrigued in the change of demeanor that seemed to happen in seconds. Her brow was furrowed with concentration, completely blocking out the outside world and everyone in it. In a black sports bra and jeans she looked ferocious instead of cute. Gone was the easy smile, replaced with a tight line of focus, as she fidgeted with the tape around her wrists and knuckles, before starting to braid her hair back.

The man from before shouted out that there was two minutes before the fight would start, and Kozik moved to get a better view of the cage. She stretched out her back again, focusing on the left side before pulling her arms across her body a few times and stepping into place at one end of the cage. The brunette took her place on the opposite end and the announcer started counting down, two men ready at each door.

Sara was bouncing from foot to foot, shaking out her shoulders.

The announcer reached zero and the doors sprung open. Sara flew into the cage like a bat out of hell and tackled the brunette by the shoulders, swinging her body up and around so that she was knocked off balance and her head bounced off the floor. Sara let go and backed up to the edge of the cage just as she hit the ground, fists up, feet moving her around the perimeter as the brunette got to her feet quickly and swung at Sara's face. She ducked, and let the brunette's momentum take her into the fencing, turning and jabbing at her ribs quickly before darting away.

The crowd started jeering as the fight continued. The brunette, the announcer said her name was Diana, managed to get a few nice hits off on Sara's face, and her eyebrow was freely bleeding, along with one side of her mouth. The brunette had suffered a quick succession of heavy blows to her stomach and sides, and a cruel elbow to the face when she had doubled over.

Five rounds in, something changed in Sara's pace. Instead of a quick flurry of blows and then darting away, she started landing hit after hit in an unrelenting, steady motion, driving the brunette to fence again.

Things were looking up until she landed a haymaker to Sara's ribs on her left side. Sara crumpled over backwards, and the brunette pressed her advantage, planting a knee on either side of her torso and pummeling Sara's face.

Kozik was yelling himself hoarse.

Sara managed to get her arms up to protect her face and drove her knee into brunette's crotch, causing her to topple forward into an awkward position where her stomach was smothering Sara's face. She grappled the brunette and flipped her over, pinning her down with one shin on her neck while she wrenched one of her legs forward in a hold.

Sara kept pulling the girl's leg in a more and more painful angle until she finally hit the mat twice with her hand and tapped out.

Sara got to her feet a little shakily and let her arm be raised up by Ed as he declared her the first winner of the night. Her eyebrow was now bleeding heavily enough to make seeing difficult out of her right eye, and her ribs were screaming. She ran her tongue over her gums to check for any missing teeth, and relieved spat out the blood that had been tainting her mouth.

Ed led her out of the cage, while her opponent was helped up by the two men manning the cage doors.

Kozik hurried over with a bar rag he had managed to snag. She grinned up at him with a bloody mouth.

"How'd I do cowboy?" She asked a little thickly and out of breath.

"C'mon, doll, let's get you outside." He said quietly, guiding her out into the cool night air of the back patio. Herman mopped up her eyebrow with the rag and started on the stream coming out of her mouth. She stood patiently as he turned her face back and forth in the light, seeing if she was concussed.

After the he had made sure she was still all there he let out a whistle that grew into a laugh.

"Shiitt girl, you can deal out some hurt!" His teeth flashed in the hazy light of the bar's outdoor lanterns.

Sara started to laugh along, until her ribs gave a spike of pain and her breath caught short. Her hand flew to her side, and she started feeling out if any of them had busted again.

"What's wrong with your side?" Herman asked, concerned. His big hand went to cover her's, but she hissed and he backed off. She turned away from him and leaned her other arm on the railing of deck. It took a few breaths to get the pain down to a manageable level.

"I got my ribs broken in Reno a few months ago, they're still tender." She explained, turning to leaning her back up against the railing. Her right hand was still on her side.

He wanted to smack her upside the head.

"What the hell are you doing in the ring if your ribs are still mending!?"

She looked at him levelly. "Paying the bills."

All he could do was shake his head. "You're crazy." Herman told her, trying to keep the laugh out of his voice. She shrugged with one arm and a red-tinted smile. A black eye was starting to bloom, and there were a few nasty yellowing bruises on her jaw and forehead.

"Can't believe you let that pretty face get beat to shit." He repeated quietly, swiping away a little blood from her eyebrow again, one hand holding her jaw.

Sara calculated for a second and then took a risk.

"Maybe it's to get a handsome cowboy to come clean me up." She told him, looking him in the eye and hoping she wasn't being an idiot for the thousandth time in her life. The sweat off her skin was starting to cool down in the October air, causing her to shiver. That was it, the air, that was what was making her shiver, and not the way Kozik's lips were getting closer and closer to hers.

He kissed her, gentle and soft, trying to not brush up against her bruises or hurt her jaw. The fingers of her left hand curled around one side of his kutte, pulling him forward slowly, until their chests were touching, and he had to lean down in order to kiss her, and she was up on her toes.

When they pulled back she was grinning like a loon. "Hope that wasn't too bloody."

He shook his head, beaming right back at her. Herman had tasted iron when he kissed her, but he liked it, liked that she was rough and tumble, liked that she gave it out as good as she took it.

"Can I take a look at those ribs?" He asked.

"If it'll ease your mind, Nursemaid Kozik." Sara smirked.


	2. Believe it Babe

Kozik bent down to take a look at her side, carefully removing her hand that had stayed clamped on to the burgeoning bruise like she was holding on for dear life. He ran his fingers over them, looking any bumps, or points of pain. She hissed once he got to third bone down and dug her fingers into his other arm.

"They're not broken, but I'm not letting you back in there." He said insistently.

"I wasn't going to." Sara told him. "I need to grab my clothes and talk to Ed about my money."

She had wanted to get a little more dough out of this endeavour, but the bitch had hit already weakened ribs. Now everyone knew her left side was weak, including the other competitors. Sara hadn't been allowed in a regulation boxing ring since three months ago when the first break happened, the refs wouldn't let her fight until at least six months had passed. It was drying up her income pretty quickly.

"Can you ride?" Kozik asked. If she couldn't, they were in some real trouble. They were too far out to call Charming to pick up her bike, and Kozik didn't trust anyone but other charters to take care it.

"It'll hurt, but yeah. Where are we headed?"

"To get you patched up properly." Herman said, "I'll grab your shit if you wanna go get your money." Sara nodded and pulled him closer again, getting up on her toes to kiss him. He tried to be gentle, but she was persistent, moving against him in spite of her bruises and split lip.

"Christ doll, you're killing me." He was doing his best not to hurt her, trying to be soft and patient. Which wasn't his usual style. If she hadn't been so roughed up he would've hauled her legs around his waist and propped her back up against the wall before going to town. But she was hurting, even if she was doing her damnedest not to show it.

He kissed her again, softly, even though he knew she was getting impatient.

She wasn't some sweetbutt. Sara was part of the big, loud, crazy, biker family he belonged to, he wasn't about to go rushing in and wreck everything like he always did. His hands gripped her hips with enough pressure to satisfy both of them.

Sara broke away with a contented sigh. "I'll go talk to Ed."

If she didn't stop soon she'd forget all about it and spend all night out here kissing Kozik. She found Ed up against the bar, his hands all over the green shorts girl's ass.

"You back for more sweetheart? Glutton for punishment?" He asked, with a smile.

"Need my money, I'm leaving." She told him shortly, outstretching her hand.

Ed's goofy drunk grin turned into a squint eyed glare. "Thought you were going two rounds."

"Changed my mind. Give me the cash."

There was nothing nice about the look Ed gave her as he pulled a dirty, folded manila envelope from his pocket and slapped it into her palm.

"Fine, bitch, get out."

She counted out the bills and stuffed them back into the envelope before walking over to where Kozik was picking up her clothing. He had taken care to tuck her socks into her boots and her heart jumped a little. His hand came to rest on the small of her back as they left out the front door and went over to their bikes.

Herman took the four silver rings out of his pocket and she started to unwrap her hands.

"Got all of it?" He asked. Sara nodded. Her skin had gone to goosebumps and Kozik was in a hurry to get her dressed again. She discarded the used tape and took the rings from Kozik and slipped them onto her fingers.

Kozik tossed her jacket on the seat of his bike and motioned for her to lift her arms. Sara managed to get them up to around her shoulders before the pain got to be too much. He pulled it over her head and pulled her braided hair out of her collar. Grimacing, she did the arms by herself.

"Sit down." Herman told her, grabbing her boots and socks. There was no way in hell she would be able to reach down and pull hard enough to get them on her feet.

"I can put my own shoes on." Sara insisted, frustrated.

"No, you can't. Sit down." He told her again, kneeling down when she relented and plopped herself on her bike's seat. Two socks and two boots later, Sara was beginning to feel fully coddled. He held her jacket up by the shoulders and let her slip it on slowly.

"You put my helmet on, I spit on you." She warned.

"Okay." Kozik laughed and put his hands up in surrender, before pulling a hoodie over his kutte and t-shirt. Little Miss Independent was struggling and huffing through fastening her helmet under her chin, but one look at her eyes told him to leave it be if he still wanted his fingers.

He gave her back both of her knives, the cigarettes, the lighter, keys and the wallet. It struck him then that she didn't carry a phone with her.

"You live round here doll?" Kozik asked, swinging his leg over his bike.

"Woodruff, half an hour to our west." She told him, getting on her own bike and starting the engine.

"I'll follow you darlin'."

Sara nodded and took off, gritting her teeth against the pain racing up her side, and the cold starting to bite at her fingers. She was happier than she had ever been to see the shitty little house she rented when they pulled into the gravel driveway.

Kozik offered his hand to help her off her bike and she took it.

He waited for her to unlock the front door, hands stuffed in his front pockets. It was a low-slung, single story, almost cabin-ish house, with red clapboard siding and an aged white storm door over the plain oak inner door she was currently fumbling with. It was set on the outskirts of town, hidden from the road by a long drive and surrounding trees.

Once they were inside, Herman got the sense she didn't spend much time here. It felt like a house not quite lived in. The middle living room had two small couches and an old television that sat collecting dust. The few things that marked her existence were the collection of small shoes by the door and the dishes in the kitchen sink.

She hit the light switch and all four rooms of her luxurious existence sprang into view. One bedroom, one bathroom, a living room and kitchen-dinette combination.

"Beer?" Sara asked him, opening her fridge with her good arm.

"Yeah, sure. Where's your medical stuff?" He asked, looking around at the barren furniture.

"Bathroom, there's a standing cabinet." She answered, handing him a cold bottle of Budweiser before reaching up with grunt for the bottles of hard liquor on top of her fridge. She pulled the top off a bottle of whiskey with her teeth and took a few draws.

Kozik came back into the room with almost everything she had put in that cabinet bundled up in his arms.

"What?" He asked when she busted out laughing.

"You don't need half of that."

Herman dumped all of it on the kitchen table. "Well, I just, I mean, figured better safe than sorry."

"It's okay. Help me get this shirt off." Sara told him, taking one last pull off the bottle. Kozik cracked his beer and took a swing before setting down next to the heap of medical tape, gauze, disinfectant and painkillers. He eased the hem up and over her head. The bruising had turned a deep, heavy purple, and reached from the end of her ribcage almost up to her armpit. She turned expectantly, and waited for him to get the message. It was an impressive piece of hardware to take off on her own, and with one side busted she really couldn't manage it.

"Oh!" Herman fumbled, undoing the hooks of her bra.

Sara slid it off her shoulders, and tried not to focus on the fact that she was half-naked with a man she met at a gas station six hours ago. She got up her nerve and turned around.

"Okay, what do I do?" Kozik asked, trying not to focus on the woman half-naked in front of him that he'd met at a gas station six hours ago.

"Get the big tape, the four inch wide stuff." She told him, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks and resisting the urge to cross her arms and cover herself. She didn't have a damn thing to be ashamed of, and so what if they just met, Kozik was good people, he was helping her out.

Sara was beautiful, Kozik could never deny that, even with the bruises and the scars and the dried blood on her face. She shone through it all, in the shitty fluorescent lighting of her kitchen.

"Get the scissors and cut little- little jellyfish tentacles about two thirds of the way up." Sara instructed.

"What?" Kozik laughed. She huffed out a sigh.

"Like little fingers. Here, just give it to me."

"No, I got it doll. Little jellyfish tentacles?" He asked with a grin, picking up the scissors.

"Oh shut up."

"Now what?"

"Do another one, and then peel off the backing. Stick the top part where I tell you and lay out the tentacles-" He laughed quietly and she glared at him before continuing. "so they wrap around."

Kozik did as he was told, knelt and followed her guiding hands on where to stick the first piece of tape, and then placing the second piece in the opposite direction so that the fringe overlapped.

She cleared her throat. "You've got to warm it up with your hands."

"Won't that hurt?" Herman asked, brow furrowing.

"It won't stick otherwise." Sara told him, knowing what came next and bracing herself against it.

Kozik's big hand rested lightly on the bandages, he was unsure on what the hell he was supposed to be doing, and the fact that she was topless was becoming more and more of a distraction.

"Just- God, there's no good way to say this." Sara laughed. "Just rub it."

His eyebrows shot up into his hairline and started running his hands over her taped up ribs. Sara had turned her face away, biting her lip and trying to keep him from seeing her increasingly watery eyes.

"You alright darlin'?"

"I'll be fine. Just keep going." Sara said through bared teeth.

Kozik kept working the adhesive, brushing up against the side of her breast once, then twice, his curiosity overtaking him. She simply looked down at him with a smirk and an eyebrow raised. His hands felt good on her skin, when they weren't pressing against her bruises, and the way he was looking at her made her feel things she hadn't acknowledged in a long while.

His smile grew into a slow easy grin that made her heart jump as his fingers brushed up against her again.

She bent her head, ignoring the pain, and kissed him, hands threading through his hair, tilting his face towards the light. One of his hands came to rest on the ridge of her hip, while the other continued its motion over her ribs.

Sara smiled against his lips, and he managed to get to his feet, arms wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her in tight, before leaning down to press his lips against hers again. It was needy and hard, and her fingers dug into his arms as she reciprocated, moving against him. She let his tongue dart between her lips, her hands sliding up under the hem of his shirt.

"Warm enough?" Kozik asked, resting his forehead on hers. She bit her lip and nodded, cheeks flushed red. "Let's get some ice on that eye, yeah?"

Sara pulled her shirt back on and sat on the edge of the table as he went to retrieve a bag of frozen peas from the freezer. Normally, she'd be doing all of this shit herself after a fight, or if Lumpy had come out to see her, he'd have stuck around and helped her out.

Herman didn't quite know what to do with the woman sitting in front of him, bag of frozen vegetables pressed up against her face. He felt something for her, something that was pulling him into standing between her knees and kissing her until he could put a name on it.

Sara let the bag hit the table with a thud, wrapping her arms around his neck as he pulled her hips forward. It had been too fucking long, and Kozik was hitting all her soft spots. He was goofy, and kind, and didn't mind the bumps and bruises that came with it all.

She wanted this. Wanted it more than she thought when she had run into him.

"Take me to bed." Sara told him softly, brushing her nose up against his with a grin.

"Yeah?" Kozik asked with a laugh, trying to keep his voice even while his heart rate was threatening to give him an aneurysm.

"Yeah." She answered, tilting her chin up at him in what she hoped looked like a confident manner. She wasn't like her Aunt Gemma, or Bobby's wife Precious. She could never just walk in and demand what she wanted, whether it was through words or body language or something, she didn't have the balls to do it. Sara had felt like an ugly duckling since before high school, and no amount of settling into her body, into herself, could change that. She would forever be the scrawny girl with too many freckles and broken noses.

It was easy for Ope and Jax, no one fucked with the Sons. Sara, was a completely different story. Freshman year she showed up for the first day in baggy hand-me down jeans and one of Opie's work shirts. The rest of the girls had labeled her "dyke" and from then on it was the title she couldn't shake. None of the boys would look twice at her, except the ones who'd meet her under the bleachers to sneak third base and laugh at her the next morning in the hallway. In a town like Charming,if you acted different you got put into a box and left there. It made things neater for the lazy stupid teenagers that grew up with fathers that would smack their sons for crying in public, and mothers that told their girls to be thinner, prettier, cleaner.

She had been angry at Piney at first, for not having the sense to raise her different, for not being rich enough to buy the clothes, the shoes, the things that would make her look like the rest of them. Piney had told her one night, after she had come home with bruises on her knuckles and scratch marks on her face, that she was who she was, and to say anything else would be a lie. "And that's worse than anything." He had told her, a finger prodding her angrily in the shoulder. "Be proud of yourself. You aren't some sissy bitch that'll fall over if the wind hits her too hard. I didn't raise you like that. You're a Winston, goddamnit girl, and if you try to be anything else it'll kill you on the inside."

Sara was who she was. She wasn't pretty, or delicate, or dependent on anyone. She had good roots, she didn't blow over when a storm came.

She kissed Kozik roughly, hands in his hair, hips rocking against his.

She was who she was, and she wanted what she wanted. The man in front of her, the man who had no problem with who she was, who had patched her up when she was done, that was what she wanted, goddamnit, and to hell with the rest.

Kozik shifted his hands against her hips. "You whole enough for me to pull a caveman?" He asked, eyes glinting.

"I don't see a club for you to hit me over the head with." Sara laughed.

"Oh I'll show you a club." Kozik told her, hoisting her up by her hips as Sara's legs wrapped around his waist and held him tight.

"Can't believe you actually said that." She snorted, as he hauled her down the hallway with ease, and kicked the door closed behind him.

"Believe it, babe."

They fumbled with their clothes, in the dim light coming off the highway and through the bedroom window.

The first thing she noticed was his tattoos. Just in case she wasn't absolutely sure who she was getting into bed with, he had S.O.A scrawled across in big, blocky calligraphy. Sara ran her fingers over it. His hands wrapped around her wrists and he looked at her curiously.

It had been a long time since she'd seen ink like that and he made it look good, the letters stretched out over his broad chest. She stretched up onto her toes and kissed him, taking her time. He was a Son, and Sara knew what would happen next. He'd be gone the next morning, and life would keep going as it had been for both of them.

Didn't mean she couldn't enjoy herself while she had him.


	3. The Watering Hole

The next morning Sara woke up to the sound of someone making a mess of her kitchen, while the sketchy radio in her living room was set to a classic rock station playing AC/DC even though it was before 9 am. She was stiffer than she had been last night, and pulling anything over her head was asking for a world of hurt. Kozik's sweatshirt was still on the floor, and she managed to snag it with a toe and put it on.

It fell down to her knees when she stood up, which was an ordeal in itself. Her ribs had gone a dark purple.

She padded her way down the hall barefoot.

Kozik was standing in front of her stove in low-slung jeans. "You're out of eggs." He said over his shoulder with a smile.

"Never had any to begin with." Sara told him, walking over to kiss him.

Kozik had managed to find the last of her bacon and a bag of frozen hash browns. He seemed to be making a pretty good go of it too.

"How're the ribs?"

"Tender."

Sara grabbed the kettle from the stove and filled it with water before putting it back on the burner. His arm snaked around her waist, low to avoid the damage. It felt good, it felt like- like they were starting something. She wanted to smack herself the moment she thought it.

His thumb ran back and forth over her hip bone, and he kissed her temple. Herman had figured out last night that he wasn't there for a lay and leave pretty quickly. She came hurtling in and hit something in him. He just didn't know if she felt the same. She was all sorts of independent, and it was kinda scary to think of who the hell in Charming she could be related to. Herman had no idea how to broach that subject. If she was out on her own and not tightly wedged into the family web of SAMCRO, it meant she probably had some kinda issues with them.

The kettle had started to whistle, so Sara took it off the stove and set to making coffee, letting his hand linger on her hip. He was tall enough that she fit in under his arm easily, and the heat coming off his skin felt good on her sore muscles.

"There are a couple mugs in the cabinet up above my head, could you-"

"Yeah, I got em'."

His hand left her side and reached up with ease to grab two plain white coffee mugs and put them down on the counter in front of her. His phone went off from inside his pocket and he gave her the spatula before answering it and walking away from the stove.

Sara knew what the phone call meant.

"Brother, you're late. Get your ass up to Tacoma." was the greeting Happy gave him before he could even say a word.

"Yeah, yeah. alright. I'll be there in a day and a half, calm your tits." Kozik half-spat. He had wanted to hang around for the day, see where this thing with Sara Grace went.

Happy hung up on him.

She poured out two cups of coffee with one hand, while turning the burner off.

"Can you stay to eat?" Sara asked him without turning around.

"Yeah, just gotta get going right after." Kozik said apologetically, sliding his prepaid back into his front pocket. She turned from the stove and shrugged, handing him one of the coffees. Apparently she took it black.

"That's alright, I know how that shit goes. Can you get the plates?" She asked.

"What would you've done without me, huh?" Kozik asked in return with a smile as he retrieved them from the same cabinet as the mugs.

"Ate it outta the frypan." Sara said honestly with a grin, clambering into one the wooden chairs, one knee up to her chest, the other barely reaching the floor. She watched the way the muscles of his back moved under his skin, and took a sip of her coffee.

"Knew you were my kinda girl." He laughed, sliding half of the potatoes onto each plate and giving her most of the bacon. He figured the Sara deserved it more than he did. "Forks? Or you just gonna use your hands?"

"Bottom drawer, left of the fridge." She told him, rolling her eyes. The radio had started spitting out Poison, and she had to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"I ain't heard this shit, in a long damn time." She told him, accepting the plate he was handing her. "How'd you find this radio station? That pile of junk hasn't worked for years."

Kozik shrugged, sitting down across from Sara Grace. "I'm good with my hands." He told her, wriggling his eyebrows.

Sara laughed, a deep belly laugh that must've hurt, her eyes shut, her head thrown back. She was so goddamn pretty, Kozik wanted to make her laugh like that again and again. Then he caught the lyrics of Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me" and he had to laugh himself.

She watched Kozik laugh, the light spark in his eyes, and felt something pull in her chest. Her hand came to rest on his cheek and she half-pulled him, half-leaned over the table to kiss him, taking as much of him as she could before he left. He warmed a part of her that gone cold when she left Charming, and her mind was screaming at her to consider the consequences always looming over her head. Fuck the consequences, Sara decided as she kissed him harder, lips moving confidently against his. She didn't want this to be a one night thing, like she had convinced herself when she had seen him at that gas station. She wanted him to come back to her, as stupid an expectation as that was.

His calloused hands were cradling her face, the rest of him half out of his chair to bridge the gap between where they were sitting.

A plate crashed to the floor as he pulled her closer. She came around the small table and crawled into his lap, kissing him again, with her hands twisted into his hair, knees locked on to his hips.

"Hap- is gonna- kill me." Kozik managed between kisses, threading a hand into her hair the other pulling her hips closer to his. Sara bent her head back and laughed.

"Happy Lowman?" She asked with a snort.

"Yeah." Kozik said, eyebrows furrowing in obvious confusion.

"Don't tell him you ditched him for pussy, or he'll skin you alive." Sara said, shaking her head with a grin.

He was startled by how casually she referred to herself as pussy. She caught the look on his face and pulled back on to her haunches.

"Don't call yourself that."

He even surprised himself with that one. Her eyebrows jumped about a mile into her hairline. His fingers ran back and forth over her bare thighs.

"Just don't." He told her, shaking his head slightly.

"Okay." Sara said.

Kozik's phone went off in his pocket again, and he dug for it awkwardly in between them. He groaned when he saw the incoming number flash across the screen. It was Lee.

"I have to get this." He said, apologetically.

She nodded, but didn't move, settling her weight a little further back, watching him answer. He had a solidly built, farm-boy-handsome face with ruddy cheeks from spending long days in the sun and wind. A true blue piece of Americana, like the color of the big skies she rode under when she had still been roving.

He got hung up on for the second time that day. This fucking run had been stressful, the only good part of his involvement was running into Sara Grace. He reached out his hands to cup her face and pulled her in with a sigh.

"C'mere."

She complied with a half smile and a raised right eyebrow.

"I gotta go," Kozik told her, fingers kneading the back of her neck lightly "but I wanna see you again, take you out somewhere. That sound good?" He asked, looking up at her with a shielded vulnerability in his eyes.

"Yeah. Sounds good." Sara said, biting her lip to keep herself from grinning like a lunatic. He kissed her then, and again at the door, and once more when he was on his bike about to take off. The minute the door was closed behind her, she giggled happily and ran her fingers over the slip of paper he'd left in her pocket.

Later, she sparked a joint to help ease the ache in her side. She took it easy, knowing a coughing fit would do more damage than she could handle at the moment. The smoke lofted lazily to the ceiling as she breathed out, slow and deep. Jax had always made fun of her for being a bit of pothead. Not like it meant much, coming from him, but he still used every occasion to point it out. Him and Ope had teased her mercilessly when they were younger.

Sara Grace had spent a lot of time trying to run from the club, trying to run from Charming. She missed her family, all of her family. Kozik had reminded her that at the deepest, most basic level, the club was filled with good people. People who would do anything for her. The fights, the bullshit, was just noise. She had been eighteen when she had left the first time, had told her father it was just for a few fights in L.A that Lumpy had set up for her, to get into the business. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth. That mess all came back to Michael Oswald and her own stupidity.

She took another inhale and puffed it out.

The trips out of Charming had grown and grown in length, until one day when she was twenty, she bought herself the shitty little house she was sitting in, and called it done. There was more to the world than small town California, and the more she kept going back the less of it she would see. At least, that was her reasoning back then. Now she was twenty four and it seemed less and less of an actual reason and more of an excuse. They were all excuses, the reasons she gave herself for staying away. The club was her family, always had been, always would be, and Michael Oswald had gone to college in who the fuck knows where, so that only left her bullshit idea of wanting to see the world. She hadn't been doing much of that lately. Between the fights and bartending, she spent most of her free time on her ass in her living room trying to recover.

Maybe it was time to go home.

Maybe she needed another hole in her head, a voice added from the back of her mind.

She would mull it over, Sara decided. She'd mull it over, and maybe even go home for Christmas. Pop's would like that, and Donna could always use the help. Her sister-in-law had been doing her best, but having a husband in jail when you had two young kids must've been hell.

She should've been there for Donna more.

She was a selfish brat.

Work that night was uneventful. The Watering Hole was busy, as per usual, but Sara Grace was far too gone in her own head to let anything register beyond a customer's call for another beer.

"You alright there?"

It was George, one of the few regulars that had stuck around when management had changed hands. The small town tavern had been remade into a sports bar a few years back, and the noise level had scared off most of the townies. It was now the haunt of the fishermen and outdoorsmen that came from the big cities to flounce around nature for a while before going back to their indoor plumbing and other luxuries.

"Yeah, George. Just thinking." Sara told him, leaning up against the bar and rubbing at her forehead.

"Talk?" The old man offered, taking a draw from his beer. She gave him a wry smile.

"Ain't I supposed to be the one giving council?"

"That part of the job description was gone the second they put those damn televisions in." George replied gruffly.

"Fine, old timer, give me your wisdom on my troubles." She teased, grabbing herself a beer from under the counter.

The sports bar had kept the country-western theme, but had taken it into overdrive. There was a mechanical bull in one corner, the other was just a wall of television screens. The tables all had checkered gingham tablecloths, everything was meant to look like it came out of a barn, there was even fake hay hanging down from the exposed wooden rafters. Every now and then they'd play Waylon Jennings' _Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys_. Made every faux-farmer's boy and his brother think he could sing.

"Where'd you wanna start, girl?" George asked, steepling his fingers in front of his face with a look of mock authority.

"The beginning?" She said with a laugh. "Though that might take a while."

George shrugged his bent shoulders as if to say he had all the time in the world.

"I'll give you the short and sweet version." Sara decided with a nod and a swig of her beer.

"I was born and raised in Charming, California. My father was a mechanic, my mother a hairdresser. They got married when Ma got pregnant with my older brother, Harry. They fell apart six years later, got divorced. My old man served in Vietnam, saw some fucked up shit-" which was true, but wasn't the whole reason he and Ma fought like rabid dogs every time they saw each other. "- couldn't get past it. He and his best friend founded a motorcycle club. The town hated it. I grew up the scrawny white-trash daughter of a danger to the status quo." Her laughter was an odd mixture of sincere and sarcastic.

"Anyways, I fell in love with a rich douchebag's son, and I think that he loved me, at least a little. We could never get on the same page though, and we fought, a lot. It ended when he took my best friend to prom. So, I showed up with Harry's best friend, they got in a fight." And both of them were hauled off to jail.

She was giving George probably way more than he had asked for, but part of her just kept her mouth moving, even when her brain was barely keeping up. Again, she wasn't giving George the whole truth, just the parts that she could give out without risking her hide. Or her emotions. Truth was, somewhere along the line, she'd half fallen in love with Jax Teller. She hated it. Hated that she just seemed to bounce from man to man, desperate for attention.

"I graduated, booked it out of town, started boxing professionally. Then, I got older and smarter and realized I couldn't get only beaten up for a living. Moved here, started doing this."

"So what's eating you?"

Sara shrugged and drank more of her beer.

"I ran into a member of Pop's club last night, took him home. He wants to start something. I said yes."

Which was a dumb thing to do, but she still meant it.

That realization had sunk in during the afternoon. She didn't know shit about Kozik, and he was part of her father's pride and joy. Piney would have something to say, and Sara Grace was sure it wasn't going to be pretty. Opie would shit bricks, and Jackson- well she had no fucking clue what he'd do. But Kozik had latched onto something in her and was doing a pretty damn good job of staying there.

George grunted. "Why's this a problem?"

"He lives in Tacoma, Washington, for one. Two he's part of the club, which has its own repercussions. Three, it's been awhile since I've had anything besides a few nights and a goodbye."

The old guy was getting way too much information about her sex life than he needed to know, she thought with a wince.

"Sounds like you jumped into the deep end without lookin' kid."

"That just about sums it up." Sara agreed, polishing off her beer.

"That ain't all, though, is it?" He asked, running a hand over his greying mustache.

George was a smart old coot. His wife, Martha, always said that when she called looking for him.

"I'm thinking about going back to Charming. Pops is getting old, and my sister in law needs help with the kids."

"That's reasonable." George said with a nod, like he was leaving the rest for her to say herself.

"I ain't doing what I set out to do, and my family needs me. I've been a selfish brat for most of my life."

George raised an eyebrow at that one.

"What did you set out to do?"

"Be somebody, go somewhere. Prove I wasn't just another trailer park queen." Sara said a little defensively. "That's why I took up boxing. I was good at it, and it could take me out of Charming." It also proved to her father that she wasn't something that needed to be constantly looked after. It made him proud, the same kind of proud he was when Ope learned how to ride. "That sort of went down the drain."

"Says who?"

Sara's eyes widened and then narrowed at her friend. She opened her mouth to reply with "everybody" but George beat her to the punch.

"You're somebody to me, somebody to that boy you slept with. You sure as hell were somebody to that boy who got into a fight for you. Don't get me started on your family."

She crossed her arms and leaned her butt up against the back bar.

"So, you tell me, kid. What are the pros of going home?" He asked, taking a drink of his beer.

"My family."

"And the cons?"

"The shit I ran away from."- which really wasn't there anymore. It was the ghosts of the shit she was more worried about.

"How's the running away worked out so far?"

"Like shit." Sara Grace laughed, rubbing at her forehead.

A patron further down the bar slapped his hand down in irritation. Sara gave George a look, before attending to the other man. His arm was wrapped around his girlfriend's waist, as she purred and giggled at him, tapping his nose with one of her fingers.

"What can I get you two?" Sara asked, plastering on a smile.

The girl gave her a blindingly white grin. The bracelets on her wrist clacked as she pointed to her man. "He knows what I want." She said, snapping her gum, before turning to head towards the bathroom.

The guy was wearing a plaid western shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hair carefully disheveled with product.

"A vodka and cranberry, and a Jack and Coke." He instructed, leaning his elbows up onto the bar. Sara gave him a nod and turned to fix the drinks, using the second shelf vodka and watered down cranberry juice filled with sugar. In her opinion, fruit and alcohol didn't belong together unless it was a forty and some orange juice. She held a certain nostalgic joy in brass monkeys.

"Can I see your tattoo?" The guy asked, craning his head over the bar to catch sight of the ink on her upper thigh. The bartender's uniform called for shorts, year round, and a tied off red checkered shirt that was small enough to strain even on members of the I.B.T.C.

Sara took a minute to finish his Jack and Coke before indulging him. She hiked the hem of her denim cut offs high enough for the whole design to show.

"Never seen one of em' on a woman before." He remarked curiously.

"Dad served in Vietnam." She explained, looking down at the glowering cartoon bulldog, smoking a cigar, helmet strapped on his head, USMC lettered over him in classic Sailor Jerry style. Well, classic Happy Lowman style.

"He agree with the 'Bring 'Em Home' part?" The guy asked, referring to the text that rested underneath it, his drink tilting dangerously towards spilling.

"Yeah, he does." Sara told him brusquely, as his girlfriend returned from the bathroom.

"What ya looking at, babe?" The woman asked with a false sense of cheeriness. Sara heard the accusation lurking underneath and kept back a snort of laughter.

"Girl's tattoo, I'm thinkin' of getting one." The guy told her, oblivious.

The girl got on her tiptoes to see over the bar and sneered.

"Not like that one, you're not."

"Why? It's got- got good line work. Or shading, or something." He hiccuped, before careening back around to face Sara. "Who did it?"

"He wouldn't work on you." She told him honestly, pulling the hem of her shorts down again. Happy would walk away from this idiot and not give a shit if he was asked to ink him.

"You're not getting a tattoo!" The girlfriend balked, forgetting her drink on the bar completely.

Sara took it as her cue to slowly back away and get back to where George sat, nursing his beer with an amused smile under his bristly mustache.

"I'd suggest you cut that boy off." George told her.

"Yeah, though I gotta feeling his girlfriend might be cuttin' something else off tonight." She replied, looking down the bar to where the couple was beginning to argue with increasing volume.

George laughed quietly, setting his now empty beer bottle down on the bar. He'd never been one for the big or loud. It had been more than a year until he had started talking to her. He spun around on his stool to check the clock. It was almost midnight, which meant Martha was probably going to call for him soon.

He clapped his gnarled hands together and held them open towards her in an understanding gesture.

"The missus's needs me, but I'm sure whatever you got cookin' will work itself out, kid. Just gotta have a little patience." George said, standing up and pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.

"Thanks, George." Sara Grace told him with a small smile. He passed a twenty into her hands and refused to accept any change when she offered.

"A pleasure as always, Sara." The old man told her with a wink. She watched him head out the door and dreaded the next hour until they closed. George was the only one of her customers she actually liked as a human being, the rest of them could rot.

The minutes ticked on, cut only by the call by the back table of deer hunters for two more pitchers of Bud Light that they guzzled down greedily. The couple at the bar had left twenty minutes after George, the woman looking stonily ahead while the man pleaded and begged for her to tell him what he did by one, the customers teetered out into the night.

When the doors finally closed, she threw on a pair of sweatpants and her leather jacket after counting up her tips and locking the bar's cash register.

"Night, Sara Grace." One of the waitresses called from where she was sweeping up in back.

"Night Nora. See ya' tomorrow." She told her with a wave, walking out into the dark with her hands stuffed into her pockets. Her fingers fumbled with Kozik's piece of paper, before she settled onto her bike and revved up the engine.

Sara Grace collapsed on to her bed with a wince. The ribs had been killing her the whole night, and would probably keep her from sleeping until she was absolutely exhausted. The painkillers she had in stock weren't enough to knock her ass out, and she kind of rued dumping her old Vicodin stash from the Reno incident.

She read over the slip of paper in the moonlight streaming through her bedroom window.

Would it be desperate to call? Did she wait a day? Or was it two? What the fuck was the protocol for meeting someone at a gas station and taking them home?

Her sheets still smelled like him, and his big, black sweatshirt sat folded over the foot of the bed frame.

It'd been her first time in almost a year, and fuck had it been good. The memory sent blood rushing to her cheeks, and a jolt down her spine. She was being ridiculous, but part of her couldn't help it.

She dialed Kozik's number.


End file.
